Xbox Series X rear port set-up revealed in new prototype leak Eurogamer.net If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Xbox Series X rear port set-up revealed in new prototype leak And this time it looks genuine. News by Richard Leadbetter Technology Editor, Digital Foundry Updated on 22 Jan 2020 173 comments New images of the Xbox Series X's casing have appeared online, giving us our strongest indication yet of what kind of input and output ports are found on the rear of the machine. The legacy HDMI input from the TVTVTVTV era is gone, replaced with a rather more mundane arrangement of USB ports, Toslink, Ethernet and a curious non-identified mystery port. The images first surfaced on NeoGAF, with acknowledgement that this is the real deal coming via Thurrott's Brad Samms - a site and an author well known for deeply embedded sources within Microsoft. Adding a little extra weight to the validity of this source is that a Twitter user - amusingly - claimed the machine on his Microsoft accont via the clearly visible serial number. With all of this in mind, the likelihood is that this is a genuine look at an Xbox Series X casing from new angles as opposed to an elaborately fake render or 3D printing. We see further air intakes (though not quite as large as I imagined) along with a standard figure-eight power input, Ethernet input and dual USB 'SuperSpeed' ports, Toslink audio and an HDMI 2.1 output. There's also a Kensington lock too, for the security-conscious amongst us. The two leaked image, which first appeared on NeoGAF, courtesy of user Curry Panda. However, the nature of the port to the left of the HDMI output that remains a mystery. Brad Samms suggests that it's some kind of diagnostic port that may not appear on final hardware (this unit is clearly marked as a prototype). However, although purely speculation on our behalf, we wouldn't be surprised at all if this eventually turns out to be an expandable storage bay for NVMe PCI Express drives, perhaps encased in some kind of stick-like cartridge configuration - an idea mooted by our very own John Linneman when the Series X was first unveiled. The dimensions look right and it would provide an easy plug 'n' play solution to a serious challenge posed by the move to ultra-fast solid-state storage: in a world where games are now frequently over 100GB in size, how do you deliver a cost effective console that's still capable of housing a substantial game collection? This may well be the next-gen iteration of the slot-in hard drive idea we saw Microsoft explore with Xbox 360. With prototype Xbox Series X hardware now leaking like this, hopefully we'll get to see something more official from Microsoft soon. Will you support the Digital Foundry team? Digital Foundry specialises in technical analysis of gaming hardware and software, using state-of-the-art capture systems and bespoke software to show you how well games and hardware run, visualising precisely what they're capable of. In order to show you what 4K gaming actually looks like we needed to build our own platform to supply high quality 4K video for offline viewing. So we did. Our videos are multi-gigabyte files and we've chosen a high quality provider to ensure fast downloads. However, that bandwidth isn't free and so we charge a small monthly subscription fee of £4.50. We think it's a small price to pay for unlimited access to top-tier quality encodes of our content. Thank you. Support Digital Foundry Find out more about the benefits of our Patreon More News Splatoon 3 Amiibos will be out next month Ink-coming! 3 Fans think Phil Spencer's shelf is teasing the Xbox Game Pass streaming box UPDATE: Xbox confirms old Keystone prototype. 59 Modder dives into Demon's Souls files following PS5 jailbreak, discovers fabled Ring of the Chieftain Who knows what's nexus? 4 Google announces cloud gaming Chromebooks less than a fortnight after Stadia shutdown GeForce Now preinstalled. 11 Latest Articles Preview Football Manager's new Console edition is the best you'll get without a PC Getting Touch-right. Splatoon 3 Amiibos will be out next month Ink-coming! 3 Fans think Phil Spencer's shelf is teasing the Xbox Game Pass streaming box UPDATE: Xbox confirms old Keystone prototype. 59 Modder dives into Demon's Souls files following PS5 jailbreak, discovers fabled Ring of the Chieftain Who knows what's nexus? 4 Supporters Only Premium only Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe. What a great book. Premium only Off Topic: Reading City of Glass in comic form "Where exactly am I going?" Premium only Off Topic: Il Buco is a transporting film about a really big hole Underlands. Off-Topic Netflix handled Sandman brilliantly It was Dreamy. 9 Buy things with globes on them And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store! Explore our store